Heretofore in the commercial handling of small fish such as smelt, sardines, anchovies and herring for illustration having a length in the general range of four to seven inches, these fish have been difficult to behead and eviscerate, except manually. It has been found over many years that this process is unprofitable, since it is time consuming and production is extremely limited.
In the commercial handling of even small fish wherein large quantities must be processed on a continuous basis as for example one to two thousand fish per hour, the above described small fish have not been subjected to mechanized equipment so as to decapitate and eviscerate these fish commercially in large quantities.
Heretofore there has been no practical mechanism which accomplishes these functions and does it in a practical efficient manner. In most cases, the decapitating and eviscerating is done by hand.
Heretofore in processing a fish in commercial quantities, the Applicant has employed a fish orienter and feeder which is adapted to receive large quantities of fish and orient them so as to move forwardly head first for further processing.